A Week of Robocars

Here are some stories of the potential robocar world, to bring things to
a human level. This is a hypothetical work of fiction. Company
brands referred to are used in a fictional context.

Friday

John's Commute

John works downtown, about 8 miles from his home. He owns a single person
robocar, but has no garage. His robocar is electric, and has about 3 kwh of
batteries in it, which can go 30 miles if you drain it fully, but to keep the
batteries healthy it never goes more than about 15. It's able to go about
40mph and never leaves city streets.

The car always takes itself to a charging pole at night, when power is cheap,
so that it's full in the morning. Near the time that John's alarm is set
for, it finds a place to wait a short distance from John's house. When
he's ready to leave, John presses a button he's put in his kitchen, and
the robocar moves to the front of his house. He's a bit late, so he
brings his coffee and bagel with him.

He walks up, the car detects his cell phone approaching and unlocks
for him. He gets in, and presses the button for it to start.

The vehicle has already been listening to data on traffic patterns and
traffic light timings. It chooses the fastest route to the office
with the fewest turns and stops, and gently accelerates on his way.
Traffic capacity is good because 80% of the streets leading downtown have
been rerouted as one-way into town, and all robocars that were parked
along the side of the major streets moved themselves out of the way before
rush hour.

John eats his bagel, and watches his favourite videoblog morning show
on the screen. The vehicle moves down the road. It knows when
the lights will be green so it never goes too fast and never sees
a red light. However, John still manages to spill his coffee on
the table. Swearing to himself, he calls up a bookmark on the computer
to arrange cleaning.

The car is no-exhaust, small and electric and thus allowed to pull right
into the elevator lobby of John's office building. He steps out, grabs
a cloth from the bathroom and quickly wipes the coffee, then shuts the
car door and gets into the elevator.

The car moves to a "Stuff Depot" branch not far from John's office. In the
Stuff Depot, it backs itself up to a special robot station, and unlocks
a panel on the trunk. A robot arm removes John's locker from the
trunk, which is a standard size. The robot slots it into a rack.

The car then takes itself to the car wash John contracts
with, where they clean up the spill. It also tops up the batteries
with a high-current charger.

John doesn't really want to pay the whole cost of owning a car, so he lets
the care hire out as a taxi when he's at work. Once charged, the
car contacts Bay City Robotaxi, and registers it
is available, and regularly updates where it is.

Mary's Sales Call

Mary works downtown as well. She needs to make a sales call to a
customer 2 miles away. She picks up her cell phone as she leaves
her desk, and tells it
to get her a taxi. The phone tells the taxi company where she
is, and she speaks her destination into the phone. The taxi
company sees that John's car is close to Mary, has the battery
capacity, and is available.

John's car rushes to Mary. She's half a mile away so this only
takes 90 seconds at 20mph. By the time she gets to the lobby
of her building, John's car is there. She watched it move on
a map on her phone screen. The display on the front of the
car says "Taxi for Mary" so she knows which one it is.

She signals with her phone and the door opens. Before she
gets in, the car's internal camera takes a flash photograph of
the interior. It adjusts the seats the way she likes them.
She tells the car to go and it takes her
to her destination. Her computer desktop immediately pops up on
the screen, and she reviews her sales presentation
during the short trip.
After Mary leaves, the camera takes another photo of
the car. The photos differ, and Harry back at taxi HQ takes a
quick look at the photos. He sees Mary's notebook on the
seat. Mary's phone is called to tell her she left the book,
and the car gets as close to her as it can to let her pick it
up. Had the photos shown that Mary had made a mess in the
car, the car would have gone for cleaning again -- on Mary's
tab.

There are no immediate needs after the trip, and it was
so short a new charge is not urgent, so the car waits.
It takes a spot blocking Martha's driveway. Many other cars
are stored along the streets during this off-peak period, in
some cases double parked. While
it's waiting, a signal comes from Martha's house, "Clear
the driveway." Martha's car was bringing her home, and told
the house of its impending arrival. The house computer
asked cars blocking the driveway to leave.
John's robocar pulls away from the driveway,
and shortly after that Martha's car pulls in
to park. Martha never knows that John's car had been there.
John's robocar either returns there or parks
anywhere else convenient.

Back in his office, John forgot his prescription, but he keeps a
spare bottle in his stuff locker. She he goes downstairs, and walks the
short distance to his local Stuff Depot, where the lockbox
he keeps in the trunk was stored. He opens it, gets what
he needs and goes back up, not too different from how
it was in the old days when you went down to the parking
lot to get something from your car.

John's Errand

Later, John needs to run a quick errand. If his car were
close, it would come for him, but since it's away on a
hire, Bay City Robotaxi sends him a substitute. It's
part of the deal. If the trip will be long, the substitute
goes to Stuff Depot and picks up John's standard size
locker. The substitute configures itself for John
as it approaches. The computer is synced to his desktop
and his phone. The seats move to a comfortable position
for him. His music and books are ready. In fact, since
one was available, John got the exact same model as his
own car, just a different colour.

Back Home

Fifteen minutes before John usually leaves the office, his
car stopped hiring itself out and got his stuff locker.
(Of course it never accepted a long term hire that would allocate
it into John's commute time.)
It moved itself closer to his office. When ready to
leave his desk, John pushed the button on his cell phone
and the car moved to him. By the time he got down, it was waiting in the elevator
lobby for him, and the trip home was pretty much a repeat
of the trip in, except this time 70% of the streets were rerouted
one-way out of downtown.

Saturday

John and his family will go visit Grandma 50 miles outside
of town. As they planned the trip in advance, Bay City
Robotaxi has a small minivan waiting by their door at
the appointed hour, with enough liquid fuel for the 50 mile
trip. They load the kids into the vehicle, which has seats
facing one another for quality family time. The car
gets onto the highway non-stop, and once on the highway
joins a convoy of other robocars in the same lane, doubling
its fuel economy and halving its road footprint.

John tries to talk to his kids, but they're more interested
in playing their games on the minivan's screen. He makes them
play a family game together instead. John had been a skilled
gamer when he was young, though his son still beats him at the
new games. John likes a race driving game, since he grew up
back when you still drove cars.

They haven't set exactly when they will leave Grandma's, so
when they use their cell phone to call for a return car, there
isn't a suitable van this side of the highway. However, Grandma has
a single person electric, and the Robotaxi company sends
a small 4-seat electric to Grandma's house. The two vehicles
set out together towards the highway. Just before the
highway exit, they pull into a small lot. Waiting there
is a natural gas powered minivan. A quick transfer into the minivan,
and it moves onto the highway and takes them home.

Sunday

Sunday, John and his buddy Mark are going out to the
mountains to hike. John's robocar takes him to the
edge of town, where one minute later, Mark's hired
robocar also pulls up. Waiting there is a 2-seater
sporty convertible -- with a steering wheel and a
stick. Mark and John zoom up windy mountain roads
with John at the wheel, having a good time.

The sportscar is fun to drive, but it has robocar
technologies in it. With less driving experience,
Mark tries to change lanes into another car in his
blind spot. The wheel resists him and beeps. He
looks and stops fighting the wheel. The car saved
him from an accident.

Monday

Monty is a member of Red Beemers Auto Club. This is a car club,
which owns a variety of red BMW robocars. They come in different
sizes, but all from the same line with distinctive styling and
luxury features. The club also has an arrangement with
various robotaxi companies and private individuals who own
these cars and hire them out.

When Monty calls for a car it's almost always a Red Beemer.
That's what friends see him roll up in, and what they ride
in when they ride with him. One of them (not always the
same one) lives in his driveway. This costs Monty more than
a lower-end car,
though not as much as owning a single car did in the old
days. But he figures it's worth it. The car is a way of
expressing himself.

The Red Beemers Club cars do not normally hire out as robotaxis,
but on rare occasions, when there is abnormally high need for
cars, they do. The Beemers, when idle for long periods are listed on
the spot market at a price that's double the going rate for similar cars.
During the periods of highest load, many robotaxi companies are willing
to pay this high rate in order to meet the guarantees of car availability
they have given their customers. It's still cheaper than having to
own extra vehicles. It's a nice subsidy for the club, though it
doesn't make as much income as listing at market rate does, because
demand at the higher price is so much less.

Rather than join a club, Charlotte has a subscription
with Infiniti. Infiniti has opened a Robotaxi company. They
don't sell their vehicles too often any more, instead they
sell them by subscription. When Charlotte calls for a car,
it's always a good condition Infiniti, pre-configured for her.
The E-ink display on the back bumper still promotes her political
candidate from the last election. Her stuff box is
always inside -- it's a standard size and loaded by robots.
Her Infiniti is always clean and charged.

On rare occasions, Infiniti is overbooked, and there is no
Infiniti for her. She gets a different vehicle, but to make
up for it, the car is either superior to what she subscribed
to, or the trip is free.

Tuesday

Ava has a sudden rush errand. Her son Josh, 4, is with her, and
her daughter Leah, 8 is at school but will be let out soon.
A kid's robocar arrives for Josh. She makes sure he has gone
to the bathroom and straps him in. In the car is a big
video screen with HDTV video-conference ability. His father, Will,
will set up a live video-conference and be watching Josh and
talking to him for his trip to the daycare. If there's
anything he can't solve during that short trip, he can command
the vehicle to make an emergency trip to a responsible adult.

A similar car comes to pick up Leah at school. It has the
authorization to do that. She sits and watches TV on the
trip, but can call out for her parents or another adult
any time. (With any luck, most of the kids still walk.)

Later, one of their parents comes to the daycare in a 3-person
car to pick them up.

Wednesday

Ava's problems will take more time to solve, so her father
Joe is flying in. Ava sends her robocar to the airport to pick
him up. It's bonded, and shows up vacant at an airport security
entrance. Inspected, it drives onto the tarmac right up to
his just-arrived plane, where it waits with several other robocars.
Joe gets off the plane and steps into Ava's robocar, which recognizes
his cell phone and drives him off the airfield and to Ava's house.

Joe didn't want to wait for his checked luggage, so it's loaded later onto
a small "deliverbot" -- an electric lightweight vehicle just for
cargo. The deliverbot brings his bag up to Ava's house. It has
been given a code to open the garage door, so it enters the
house, and drops the luggage in the garage, then departs for another
job. Joe gets a text message telling him his luggage is downstairs.

Thursday

Maria is building a prototype of a new invention. To make a metal
part, she needs a computer controlled lathe. She could go to a shared
shop, but she needs to work with other things she has at home, so she
goes to her computer and requests one. At a rental house, the lathe
is loaded, possibly by robots, onto a deliverbot. About 15 minutes
later, it signals her garage door to open and the lathe is deposited
in her workshop. The deliverbot exits. She goes downstairs, plugs
in the lathe and begins work on her prototype.